Top 10 killers in your kitchen

Calories, fat, sugar and salt. They are four food landmines that add pounds and add to your risk of diabetes, heart disease and death.

They are killers in your cabinets. Death traps in your fridge. They are the top foods to trash!

Ditch the soda, sweet tea and fruit-flavored punch. Each 12-ounce can of pop has seven teaspoons of sugar.

“We’re getting way too much sugar in our diet, and there’s really some incredible concern about fructose,” said Vicky Newman, M.S., R.D., a nutritionist at Moores Cancer Center.

Beware of canned fruits and veggies. To cut down on extra sugar and sodium, rinse them before heating, and be sure to buy them packed in their own juice, not syrup. It’s this type of sugar-fructose that is believed feed cancer cells.

“We could be helping those cells to grow and divide,” said Newman.

Sausages, hotdogs and bacon are the bad boys of the meat counter. They’re high in fat and sodium. One slice of bacon has 194-milligrams of sodium. That’s as much as an entire order of Wendy’s French fries. Even processed meats that say “lower” or “reduced fat” raise your risks of heart disease and diabetes.

Give up white bread for good! Choose whole grain for more fiber, and don’t be fooled by the color. It has nothing to do with it being whole grain. Look for the term “whole” on the label.

Canned soup is better off left in the can. That’s because the lining in the cans are made of the chemical BPA -- often found in plastics.

“BPA is a hormone disrupter,” said Newman.

In a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, people who ate canned soup every day for five days had urine levels of BPA that were 1,221-percent higher than those who ate freshly-made soup. High levels of BPA can cause early puberty, ADHD, obesity and type 2 diabetes.

Two more don’ts: chips and crackers. They may be labeled low fat or trans fat-free, but they still have plenty of salt and calories.

The best advice: keep all of this out of the kitchen.

It’s not just what you have in your fridge but where you place the food in your fridge that could sabotage your diet. Research shows the average person opens the fridge 22 times a day, so be strategic. Fill your eye-level shelf with fruits and veggies. A Cornell study found you’re nearly three-times more likely to eat healthy food if it’s in your line of sight.

Copyright 2013 by Ivanhoe Broadcast News and News4Jax.com. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.